November 11, 2008

The way I prepare presentations has changed quite a lot since I started speaking in public in 2002. (Wow, it’s been six years!) I was preparing a presentation for Concordia University students on Web 2.0 at work, and I figured that it’s gotten to the point where I can actually explain to other people how I do it. In the process, I’m sure we’ll figure out ways to do things even better. =) Here’s what I did:

I started by writing some details about the talk along the top of the page: where it is and who’s attending. Then I drew two stick figures: one for people going into the talk, and one for people going out of the talk.

I focused on the people going out of the talk. What did I want them to be able to do? What did I want them to understand? What did I want them to feel?

After I sketched the outcome, I went to the beginning. What would people be thinking, going in? What would be their experiences and assumptions?

Then I drew an arrow from the person going in to the person going out. Somehow, my presentation would need to help people get from point A to point B.

I added lots of arrows feeding into that main arrow. Which stories could help people move towards the outcome? I listed as many stories as I could.

Then I started mindmapping the presentation so that I could group similar elements and flesh things out in more detail. I wrote my key message on the right side. Then I broke it down into parts, which I refined further. I cross-referenced it against the first page to see if I had any other stories that fit in nicely, and to make sure that all the parts I wanted to include were related to the arrow between point A and point B.

And then it was storyboard time! =D I didn’t have any storyboard templates lying around (maybe I should print some!), so I used graphing paper instead. I could’ve used my Cintiq for this and the previous steps, but graphing paper had been more convenient when I started, and it didn’t cost me that much more time. =)

It was strange making a storyboard for the presentation. I’d hear snippets of the presentation in my head – sudden snatches of potential transitions and ways to illustrate topics. I started from the first slide and followed the images as they flowed. There are better ways to illustrate these things, I’m sure, but this was a good start! =)

After I created the storyboard, I opened up Inkscape and brought out my Cintiq tablet. I made a grid of 800 pixel by 600 pixel rectangles, 5 rectangles across and 9 rectangles down. I set the rectangle fills to black and my pencil color to white, and then I started drawing. I occasionally cleaned things up with the node tool and the delete button, both mapped to shortcut keys on my tablet.

A couple of hours later, it was done.

Then I needed to figure out how to get it into a presentation. I didn’t want to export each frame, because it was hard to keep things in sequence and inconvenient to rearrange slides in the presentation software. Instead, I exported the entire thing as a large image. I used ImageMagick (convert -crop 800x600 slides.png slide_%d.png) to slice the image into tiles, and the OpenOffice.org Photo Album extension to import all of the slides. Bonus: they imported in sequence!

I saved the slides as ODP and PPT, and exported the slides as PDF. Et voila:

Our cat has a firm idea of what constitutes a perfectly acceptable wake-up time for breakfast: 6:00. I’ve taken to waking up early and making her breakfast, getting ready, and so on.

Today I arrived at work at 7:00. The lights were still dim. I don’t think anyone else was in the IBM office. I got a lot done. I remembered to leave work early, too, and I got a lot done at home as well. I remember blogging about early starts a number of times, and I like it when I can get into the rhythm of it. W- and I will make sure we keep in sync, too.

Preparing a few things the night before makes things so much more convenient. After dinner, I pack my lunch, leave a pot of oatmeal to soak on the stove, and set out all my clothes in the order that I need to put them on. The rest of the time is mine to spend, and then it’s another great morning.

I’m getting the hang of the little things, too. The subway ride is the best time for Japanese flashcard practice, because I’m sitting down. The Pimsleur language lessons are best for dish-washing time, because I need my hands to be free. I’m working my way through French, and I hope I’ll be able to practice understanding conversation when I’m in Montreal.

There’s still a lot of room for improvement. Depending on need, I may make early mornings my personal project time. Right now, I’m relaxed, but not feeling very creatve. There are a number of things I still need to follow up on, including possible tea party plans. (I’m a month late with my tea parties!) But things are good. =)

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JohnKitchin Thanks. That matches my current understanding too. It seems like use-package pretty conveniently installs and configures packages. I have seen cask for creating and installing... – Emacs configuration and use-package